


The Spark Is Out

by amphitrite



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, Star Wars: Rebels, Star Wars: The Rise of Kylo Ren (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Child Death, Childhood Friends, Friends to Enemies, Gen, Gray Jedi Jacen Syndulla, Grief/Mourning, Jedi Ben Solo, Jedi Temple (Star Wars), Mostly Canon Compliant, Second Jedi Purge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-15
Updated: 2020-09-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:20:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26441068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amphitrite/pseuds/amphitrite
Summary: Ben Solo was Luke's first student after Leia—but Jacen Syndulla was his eldest.Sent on a mission to the Outer Rim, Jacen is away when Ben destroys Luke’s Jedi academy. He returns to the temple to find a broken Luke and his home in ruins. After losing contact with the last remaining survivors, Jacen and his astromech pursue Ben across the galaxy.
Relationships: Ben Solo & Jacen Syndulla, Ben Solo | Kylo Ren & Jacen Syndulla, Leia Organa & Jacen Syndulla, Luke Skywalker & Jacen Syndulla
Kudos: 6





	The Spark Is Out

**Author's Note:**

> I started this story as a brief missing scene fic budgeted at 3k, but then it began to take on its own life. Now it captures the entirety of Jacen Syndulla's terrible, no good, very bad week.
> 
> An alternate title for this fic: *slaps roof of car* this bad boy can fit so many literary mirrors in it.
> 
> **Content warnings:** Canonical death of children, one instance of vomiting, a few instances of mild gore, buildings on fire

  


> _“Look at you. The deed split your spirit to the bone.”_  
>  —Snoke, to Kylo Ren, after he kills Han Solo

  


* * *

  


The Jedi temple was located underground on Tanaduron, a frigid tundra planet in the Outer Rim devoid of inhabitants since a Death Star test decades ago. The planet’s native species had been largely Force sensitive and had left behind a heavily warded temple. Jacen spent nearly an hour trying to figure out how to open the karking door, dressed only in a poncho over his brown Jedi tunic and his pilot gear. It had been a very cold hour, the air frigid and the chilly wind stabbing like knives. Disgruntled, he pushed the portion of his hair that had come loose out of his eyes.

Master Skywalker had sent him on this mission to recover a holocron they had found mention of in one of the old books they had rescued from the ruins of the Great Library on Ossus. Jacen had wanted to take Ben with him—Ben _loved_ searching for Force wielder artifacts—but Master Skywalker had insisted that he go alone. Based on a vision of his, probably. Jacen had never been much of a Force seer, and he was disinclined to put too much faith in Master Skywalker’s doomsday premonitions. It had been those visions that, not so long ago, had led Master Skywalker to ask Jacen to keep an eye on Ben and to report any anomalies in his behavior. Jacen was still angry at him for that.

Continuing his way through the temple, Jacen allowed himself an exhausted sigh. He thought longingly of the comfort of the old, extensively modified T-70 X-wing he called his own—the _Spirit_ —and the hut he shared with Ben back on Spero-5, in the Jedi Praxeum _._

At this point, Jacen had visited enough temples, both Sith and Jedi, to know that he wouldn’t be able to just walk in and take the holocron and whatever other treasures the temple housed. So far, though, the only challenge the temple offered was pitch-black darkness. The glow of his lightsaber was all that illuminated the walls, which were covered in old, beautiful art embellished with colorful paints. Master Skywalker always drilled him on what he had seen on his solo trips, but Jacen had a terrible memory, so he carried a holocam with him to record what he saw—though he expected the sorry lighting to render the holos barely usable. But maybe Master Skywalker would be able to glean something from them.

Jacen was trying to get a closer look at a mural of what looked like the Father of Mortis when he felt it, a sudden tremor in the Force—cold like the icebergs on this planet, and just as deep. It felt like someone had split his head open. He staggered as the terrible pain radiated to the rest of his body.

“What was that?” he murmured to himself.

He hesitated, wanting to go investigate. But there was a chance that the feeling was part of the temple’s security system, and he would feel like a fool if he retraced his footsteps out after the effort it had taken to enter. He wished he had snuck Ben onto the ship before he left. Ben loved puzzles, and Jacen was always at his best when he had someone off which to bounce his ideas and thoughts.

Shaking his head, he continued on. But the cold feeling didn’t go away, only seeping deeper into him, clinging to his bones. Doing his best to ignore it, Jacen proceeded deeper into the cavern, choosing his path along the mazelike twists and turns by instinct. He lost track of how much time passed, focused as he was on finding the main chamber. Places like this always had a main chamber.

Then, he saw something out of the corner of his eye, gold and iridescent, and fluttering.

“Who’s there?” he called.

Whatever—or _who_ ever—it was moved along the wall before it appeared before him, coalescing into a fathier that transformed into a vulptex, then a rangifer with grand, glittering antlers.

“Jacen Syndulla,” the creature said, in a clear, sonorous voice, “child of many worlds.”

“Yup, that’s me,” Jacen said, taking a step back and keeping his lightsaber in hand just in case they weren’t friendly. After all these years studying with Master Skywalker, he was still easily alarmed by the way some Force-sensitive entities seemed like they could see straight through to his soul. “And you are?”

“I am Mezai,” the creature said, stretching its hind legs, “the Guardian.”

“The guardian of what?”

“Of many things. Of everything.”

“Wow,” Jacen said, squinting at them. “That sure cleared things up.”

“Why do you disturb this hallowed resting place, Jacen Syndulla?”

“I’m looking for the Jedi holocron that’s housed here,” Jacen explained. “Once I find it, I’ll be on my way.”

The rangifer leaped across the surface of the wall, then turned back to Jacen. “What is it you mean to achieve with the holocron?”

“My master asked me to retrieve it.”

“And what does your master hope to accomplish with it?”

“I do not know.”

“You do know,” Mezai said, turning into a purrgil, so massive that they filled up the wall with bold, gold strokes.

“Knowledge, I guess,” Jacen said, wide-eyed at the magical sight. “He’s been accruing a Jedi library, to ensure that old knowledge is not lost.”

“No, that is not all.”

Jacen frowned, thinking of the visions Master Skywalker had told him about. Of the late nights he knew Master Skywalker spent scouring his collection of books, seemingly more troubled than soothed by what he found. Of what Master Skywalker had asked of him, to betray his best friend.

Looking at his feet, he said, “Master Skywalker is convinced my friend—another Jedi—will be tempted to the dark side—and that he will fall. He’s trying to save him.”

“Ah,” Mezai said. “A rescue it is, then.”

“It doesn’t make any sense,” Jacen said, angry again at the thought. “Ben’s never been _noble_ and _selfless_ like Master Skywalker says the Jedi were, but none of us are, really. I don’t know if I even believe that all the Jedi were like that. What I do know is that Ben’s not dark side. He’s arrogant, and short-tempered, and a little petty, but he’s not cruel. He’s not evil.”

“I do not know of this evil you speak of. All living beings are capable of great kindness, and of great wickedness. And acting on one never precludes the other.”

Jacen nodded, thinking of what he remembered from his early childhood in the Rebellion. There had been friendly beings who looked down on his mother; and Humans who always shared their meal portions with Jacen but made snide remarks about Mandalorians like Aunt ’Bine, clones like Uncle Rex, and non-Humans Uncle Zeb when they weren’t around; and brave fighters who helped liberate countless worlds from the Empire and advocated for the freedom for all beings but always had something nasty to say about Imperial defectors like Uncle Sandy and Uncle Wedge.

“I think you’re right,” Jacen said. “Life is never as black and white as the old texts say. Maybe there _are_ people as evil or as good as the ancients thought, but I think most people fall in the middle.”

“That alone is more powerful than all the knowledge in the holocron,” Mezai said, transforming into a frost tooka. “And what does that mean for your friend?”

“Master Skywalker wants Ben to be what the Jedi used to be—what he _thinks_ the Jedi used to be—but maybe Ben doesn’t have to be the best person ever. The Force is about balance, right? Maybe what we really need is balance inside ourselves. Maybe that’s where Ben can thrive—not at either poles but in the middle.”

“And what if your master is right, and he is tempted?”

“I have to believe that even if someone tried to seduce him to the dark side, they would fail—that he would choose balance over power.”

“And if he does not? If he chooses to act on hatred and fear and anger? Will you abandon him?’’

“Never,” Jacen insisted. “I’ll be there to show him the way back.”

“You have a generous heart, Jacen Syndulla.”

“I get that from my ma,” Jacen said, smiling. “And from what I’ve heard, from my dad as well. Ben’s my family, too. I won’t give up on him so easily.”

“Go on, Jacen Syndulla. Take this lesson with you, and the holocron, too, and do your best to help your friend.”

Suddenly, the darkness subsided, and Jacen found that he was standing in a doorway to the main chamber of the temple. The cavern had a high ceiling, and on the walls were more detailed carvings, some that looked like decoration and others that seemed to be words and images. In the middle of the room, there were three massive statues of humanoids, and between them, an altar. On the platform was the familiar cubical form of a Jedi holocron, its gold edges glinting.

Jacen made his way over to it slowly, wary of any traps or other so-called guardians. But nothing else disturbed his passage.

Taking a deep breath, he reached for the holocron, his lightsaber at rest in his other hand. Like all other holocrons, it was warm and heavy. He tucked it into his backpack, in a hidden compartment of the bag, where he hoped it would be safe until he could turn it over to Master Skywalker.

The way back out of the cave was much simpler than the trek inward had been, and yet Jacen’s heart pounded in his ears as he made his way to the exit, one hand on his holstered blaster and the other on the hilt of his lightsaber.

Outside the temple, the Force still felt off kilter, like a moon tilted incorrectly on its axis. He tried to reach out with his telepathic powers to see if he could feel anything, any emotions at all, but the harsh, profound coldness remained, muffling his senses.

Beside the ephemeral temple entrance, his beloved astromech, AC-3, was faithfully guarding the _Spirit,_ rolling up and down the ramp, the anxious droid’s version of pacing. They beeped excitedly in binary when Jacen stepped into view.

“Yup, got the holocron. But I think we should leave as soon as possible. I can’t explain it, but there’s something wrong with the Force. The sooner we get back to Spero-5 the better.”

He followed AC-3 to the cockpit, and they settled into the familiar routine of preparing the starfighter for takeoff. Before they left the ground, they ran a standard diagnostic on the upgraded Class 0.8 hyperdrive Jacen’s grandfather had helped him install when he had visited Ryloth during one of the few times his mother’s shore leave lined up with his academy breaks.

Guided by Jacen and AC-3, the _Spirit_ traveled the short distance to a hyperspace lane, then made a rocky jump.

Once it was safe, Jacen put the navicomputer on autopilot. Then he did his best to relax, crossing his legs on the pilot’s seat and closing his eyes. He began to meditate, murmuring the words that Master Skywalker had taught him to help him concentrate:

“ _I am one with the Force...”_

  


* * *

  


When Jacen broke atmosphere, the Praxeum’s side of the moon was in its night cycle. From the air, he could immediately tell something was wrong. The Force around the ship was heavy and thick, like Rylothian candy syrup, and in it lingered an impression of suffering that reminded him of the war zones he had witnessed as a child. Reaching out, he sensed fresh bloodshed and hate and guilt, more intense than anything he had ever felt before.

And then he saw it: The Jedi Academy was on fire, and all that remained of the huts around it were charred ruins.

“No,” he gasped, heart lurching.

Beside him, AC-3 trilled in distress. The Praxeum was the only home the droid had ever known. It had been Jacen’s home, too, for nearly a decade.

“Ben,” he whispered, fear clawing at his chest as he thought of his best friend lying in that rubble. Frightened, he retrieved his comlink from his jacket. “Ben? Are you there?”

There was no response. Chest tight, Jacen switched frequencies. “Master Skywalker?”

No answer either. He tried Tai, and the signal connected.

“Tai? Thank the stars. It’s Jacen. What’s happened?”

“Master Syndulla!” Tai cried. “It’s Ben, he—he says Master Skywalker—oh, kriff, this can’t be happening! You need to...you have to help us. He’s not in his right mind—but he can be saved. We need to find him.”

“Slow down,” Jacen said. “Are you alone?”

“Voe and Hennix are with me; we’re on the _Verity—_ pursuing Ben.”

“Ben, where’s Ben? Is he okay?”

“Yes,” Tai said. “Well, he’s not dead. He—we fought him, but he got away.”

“What? Why would you fight him? He wouldn’t fight you.” But even as he said it, he knew Tai was telling the truth.

“He _did,”_ Tai said. “He said Master Skywalker tried to kill him. And so he—” Tai let out a cry of despair. “So he killed Master Skywalker!”

“ _What?”_ Jacen nearly crashed the ship. 

AC-3 beeped, panicking, as the _Spirit_ came in too hot, crash landing beside the temple, systems blaring. Even at this distance, he could feel Tai’s horror and denial as if he were right next to him. Like him, Tai was an empathy-capable telepath, able to sense the emotions of other beings, and they had always been able to sense each other across great distances. Ben, too, was one, but as in all things, he was simultaneously more skilled and less disciplined than either of them.

“Master Skywalker is dead,” Tai repeated. “All the other padawans and younglings are dead. There must have been some misunderstanding, an accident of some kind! Ben wouldn’t—he wouldn’t, Master Syndulla!”

“I know, Tai,” Jacen assured him. “I believe you.”

“Voe and Hennix don’t,” Tai said. “They tried to fight him, but Hennix got hurt, and Ben fled.”

“Where are you now? Acer and I just landed at the Praxeum.”

“We’re in pursuit,” Tai said. “We tried to stop him, but, you know—”

“Ben always wins,” Jacen murmured. It had become something of a joke since they first met and began training together. From the beginning, Ben had been able to win a duel with any—or all, as they’d found out once—of them. He was an excellent battlemaster, studiously teaching lightsaber techniques to the younglings. It would have been nothing for him to come out victorious in a fight with Tai, Voe, and Hennix—especially if Tai’s heart hadn’t been in it.

“Yes. But I can feel him clearly enough right now to sense his location—you can probably, too. We’re going to find him and talk to him.”

“I’m guessing Voe isn’t interested in talking,” Jacen said, exiting the ship alongside AC-3, whose movements were frenetic. They stayed close enough to hear Tai’s anxious voice.

“Unfortunately. Hennix isn’t either. They want revenge, and I came with them because I think I can get through to Ben. You must help me save him, Master.”

“I will,” Jacen promised. “But first—did you see Master Skywalker’s body?” He thought of what he had learned about how, if they were powerful enough, some Jedi became one with the Force when they died, their corporeal bodies disappearing entirely. “Or his robes, maybe?”

“No,” Tai said. “We didn’t have time to look for him. From what Ben said, he must be underneath what’s left of your place.”

Jacen took a shaky breath. The hut he shared with Ben? It was a horrifying thought.

“Okay, you stay on course,” he said. “I’ll look for Master Skywalker. We owe him that, at the very least. Then, I’ll meet you at your position.”

“But—”

“No buts. That’s an order, Padawan. Keep your com line open.”

Tai sighed. “Fine. Be safe, Master.”

“You too, Tai. Syndulla out.”

The Praxeum air was thick with ash, the sharp, chemical smell of burnt buildings permeating the area. Jacen coughed and tugged up his scarf—a gift from his uncles on Lira San—to cover his nose and mouth. AC-3 whined, making their way through the debris ahead of him.

“I don’t know, Acer,” Jacen said. “Just hoping Tai was wrong about Master Skywalker.”

But as they made their way through what had been a Jedi sanctuary—a refuge—he began to lose hope.

The temple was in ruins. All the academy buildings the students had helped build were gone:

The dojo where he and Ben had sparred daily, Jacen egging Ben on to help him release some of his pent-up energy, which had always ended with Jacen lying flat on the floor and Ben—with that annoying smirk on his face—giving him a hand up.

The small galley where Jacen and Ben and the other older students took turns cooking meals for everyone when they weren’t practicing inedia.

The classrooms where Jacen had first taken his diplomacy lessons and later helped teach them, along with his flight training courses.

The library, where Jacen had worked hard on putting together lesson plans and exercises, with Ben beside him eagerly devouring all the books Master Skywalker had collected, taking notes on the ridiculous antique parchment scrolls he was so fond of and trying to engage Jacen in frustrating debates about morality and power.

The trees in the humble courtyard, under which he and Ben had lounged, talking about everything from Ben’s frustration with his family and Jacen missing his own, to banal conversations about the documentary holos they both loved, to deep discussions about their hopes and fears.

But that was all gone now.

There were several bodies in the library, beings Jacen had watched grow up, who loved flying like he did. He found two of his young students in the galley. The corpses were burnt, unnaturally singed. These had not been quick deaths.

On the way to the huts, he found more bodies: Three refugees of the Galactic Civil War, siblings who had come to them late but were eager learners. Two young prodigies, barely eight years old, what remained of their faces contorted in suffering. A fellow Jedi Knight, a skilled mechanic who had taught the older students how to repair their ships and program their droids.

Jacen fell to his knees beside the latter and emptied the contents of his stomach. _What had happened?_ There was no way Ben would have done this. Not here, not these beings—ones he had helped train, ones he had learnt alongside. And not Master Skywalker...the uncle whose attention he coveted, the one who had taught him everything he knew.

Jacen needed to find him. He needed to find any survivors.

He wiped his mouth on his sleeve, ignoring the sour burn of his throat. AC-3 helped him to his feet, their servo reaching out for his hand.

“Thanks, buddy,” Jacen whispered, fighting tears. “I’m sorry you had to see that. Let’s go see if there’s anyone who needs our help.”

The rest of the students were dead, too. Burned to death in their own beds, with the rooves of their huts collapsed in, as if by retribution from the sky. Whoever had done this was immensely powerful, and had shown no mercy.

_All living beings are capable of great wickedness._

Openly crying now, Jacen found that the dense, syrupy pain he was absorbing increased with each new ruin he investigated. And with each body he examined, his fledgling hope that Master Skywalker was still alive faded. They were all dead. All his students; everyone in his cohort besides Tai, Voe, Hennix, and Ben—gone, their lives indiscriminately snuffed out by something terrible.

To his surprise, Master Skywalker’s hut was one of the only ones still standing. Inside, R2-D2 rested in his charging dock, powered down. Jacen was reluctant to wake him, but if he was the only survivor of this horrifying massacre...

“Hey, Artoo,” Jacen said, wiping his face on the sleeve of his flight jacket, “I need your help.”

In a flurry of binary, AC-3 brought the other droid up to speed on what had happened.

R2-D2 did not take the news well, warbling in horror and indignation: _Ben would never!_

“I know,” Jacen said, sniffling wetly. “It can’t be Ben; it doesn’t make any sense—but _something_ killed them all. Something that saw the New Jedi Order Master Skywalker has been building as a threat. Let’s go find him, Artoo. Maybe we’ll be able to get some answers.”

The structure of Jacen and Ben’s hut was completely demolished, the living space entirely debris now. Jacen picked his way through the wreckage, breath hitching at the dilapidated sight of what he had called home all these years—this place where he had comforted Ben when he was plagued with nightmares, and where Ben had always been ready to distract him with holochess or sabacc when Jacen felt homesick for the Core Worlds or Ryloth or the space between the stars.

They found Master Skywalker beneath the collapsed roof and walls, underneath a pile of wood and stone, and barely breathing. But breathing, nonetheless.

“Acer! Artoo! Help me clear the way to the ship,” Jacen ordered. “He needs medical attention.”

Closing his eyes, he concentrated on using the Force to carefully levitate Master Skywalker out of the rubble without disrupting it and accidentally burying him again. Slowly, he floated Master Skywalker’s body, moving him toward the main path that led from the academy buildings to the huts.

R2-D2 was beeping anxiously, hovering over Master Skywalker once Jacen laid him down.

“Master,” Jacen said urgently. “Master, wake up! Please. Something terrible has happened.”

Master Skywalker was so unresponsive that Jacen began to lose hope again. Finally, he took desperate measures and used his telepathy to prod Master Skywalker’s mind.

It took much longer than it should have, but eventually Master Skywalker shifted, the muscles of his face contracting. “Jacen?” he groaned, eyes still shut.

“Yes, Master, it’s me.”

Jacen helped him up, propping him up against a crumbled slab of stone nearby. Master Skywalker opened his eyes, dazed, and jumped at the sight of him. “Jacen!” he exclaimed. “Where’s—Ben! Ben, he thinks—oh, _blast it—_ ”

“Master, you must calm down. Tell me what happened.”

Master Skywalker stared into the distance, seeming far away. Jacen waited, as patiently as he was able in such dire circumstances.

When he finally spoke, Master Skywalker's voice was quiet and flat: “I probed into his mind. I couldn’t resist—I had to know. I needed to understand.” He paused to fight a coughing fit. Jacen knew Master Skywalker always put on a strong face for his students, but this broken man was nothing like the Jedi Master he was accustomed to. “He was sleeping at first, and the vision was terrible, and so real. Instinctively, I activated my lightsaber—”

“No!” Jacen shouted, and barely noticed Master Skywalker flinching away. “No, Master, you didn’t—”

“Ben woke up,” Master Skywalker continued in a monotone. “He saw me—he thought—” Suddenly, he clutched at Jacen, shaking him by the shoulders. “You have to believe me, I didn’t—I wouldn’t—” he cried. “I wasn’t going to kill him; it was a reflex! I could never. I could never!”

“I know that,” Jacen said gently, trying to get a rein on his horror. It was suddenly all too easy to imagine what Ben had assumed. Master Skywalker had never approved of Ben’s fascination with the Sith. And after Ben had found out about his heritage, he had only become more and more interested in their teachings and their ways, and Master Skywalker had hidden his displeasure less and less. They had argued about it many times—so many that it was practically a joke between Jacen and the other students to expect it when they were in the same room.

Jacen thought about how he had refused to spy on Ben for Master Skywalker, and how he had struggled with the decision of whether to tell Ben about it. In the end, he hadn’t, fearing it could shatter their relationship, and yet—it had happened anyway. Maybe some relationships were just set on a collision course.

“But Ben didn’t,” he said, fist over his mouth in a sorry effort to hold back his new tears. “He thought you were going to hurt him. And so he...he did all this.”

Master Skywalker stared at him. “What?” he demanded. “What did he do?”

With trembling hands, Jacen turned him around so that he could see what remained of the temple, which was engulfed by huge, billowing flames.

“No!” Master Skywalker staggered to his feet.

Jacen caught him as he swayed, and he helped him upright. “You’re going to hurt yourself!” he scolded, making to push him back down onto the ground. But Master Skywalker shoved him away with a Force push, and then it was Jacen who was on the ground, heaving at the way the abrupt motion had restricted his breathing.

By the time he regained his senses and freed himself from the Force around him that Master Skywalker had manipulated into keeping him down, he felt severely weakened. Muscles quivering, he sat up on his elbows. AC-3 was at his side, chirping in concern.

“Master!” he shouted.

But Master Skywalker was already gone, limping toward the flames. The anguish emanating from him was so intense that it hurt Jacen’s head. He tried putting up his mental wards as he had been taught, but his heart was beating too fast, and all he did was make himself dizzy.

Closing his eyes, he tried the breathing techniques he had learned, sucking in huge gulps of air.

When he finally sorted out which emotions didn't belong to him, he sat up, rubbing his filthy face.

Master Skywalker. He had to help Master Skywalker.

He found him kneeling before the temple, the hood of his cloak obscuring his features. Faithful R2-D2 sat beside him, his old housing glinting in the light of the massive flames. Helpless, Jacen and AC-3 stood there for a long time, watching them in silence.

Jacen couldn’t bear to look at the Academy anymore; every time he tried, bile immediately rose in his throat. All those lives lost. Over nothing more than a misunderstanding. But that misunderstanding had been the result of a schism that had lived beneath their relationship for too long—perhaps it had simmered unattended for years before Master Skywalker and Ben had gone to visit Hera and convinced her to enroll Jacen in their forthcoming school. Jacen, who loved them both so deeply, had only been able to bridge that gap by so much. He was family, but Ben had been Master Skywalker’s prized protégé—the vessel for all his hopes; his son, in all the ways that mattered.

And now that very same person had destroyed everything Master Skywalker held dear—and tried to kill him.

Master Skywalker and R2-D2 didn’t move any closer to the temple, as if they couldn’t bear it either. Jacen began walking toward them when he saw Master Skywalker turn to place a hand on R2-D2, his head bowed in grief. His profile was stark, and Jacen could see the tear tracks on his face, illuminated by the blaze.

“Master,” he said softly, “we need to get out of here.”

When Master Skywalker looked up at him, Jacen saw the face of a shattered man, his features crumbled and quivering. The guilt and rage emanating from him cut like razors. Jacen felt his hurt like a physical thing that tugged at his emptied stomach and stabbed at his head.

“Jacen,” Master Skywalker gasped. “Jacen, my boy...”

Jacen crouched and put his arms around Master Skywalker, like he hadn’t since he was a cocky and overly affectionate teenager who aspired to become talented enough to defeat Ben and Master Skywalker in combat. He never had, though. Ben had always been the better Jedi, and Jacen had always been the better pilot. Perhaps that had been the saving grace, the foundation, of their deep friendship: a drive to surpass the other—but also a mutual respect, admiration, and kinship. Between them, there was a unique kind of balance.

That the same being he had seen as his equal could have wreaked so much destruction was horrifying, and yet, somewhere deep inside Jacen, he had to admit that he should have seen it coming. Ben had been powerful from a young age, with a quick temper and fathomless insecurity Jacen had never understood.

And yet. Ben was his best friend. The one who always took him flying on his birthday and insisted on regularly baking his favorite dessert. The one who always holo-called his uncle Chewbacca on Life Day, no matter what he was fighting with his parents about at the time. The one who would draw Jacen out of his funks with sparring matches and hologames. The one who reminded Jacen gently about the things he always forgot, and who helped him practice combat forms and drilled him on key history dates and the names of the important Jedi. The one who always picked out the maize kernels from his own bowl and silently gave them to Jacen, simply because he had once mentioned being fond of them.

“How could he?” Jacen cried into Master Skywalker’s shoulder. “How could he, Master?”

“It’s all my fault,” Master Skywalker muttered, rocking in Jacen’s arms. “It’s all my fault.”

“No, you gave him everything, Master. He...he’s the one who’s thrown it all away.”

“I didn’t see it until it was too late. I thought his raw strength was a gift, that he would help me rectify what my father did to the galaxy. But when the visions began, he became a threat, in my mind. A true Jedi would have been strong enough to do what they needed to do. But I was too soft. I wanted to save him, like I did my father. I needed to save him.”

“No, Master,” Jacen said, horrified. “Of course you were right to try to save him. But what he did—it’s done. We can’t change that. All we can do is make sure he doesn’t hurt anyone else.”

Beside them, AC-3 beeped a warning.

Jacen pulled back from the embrace and wiped his face, sniffling. “Acer’s right—we need to get out of here. We don’t know if B—” He couldn’t even say his name. “If someone will return to finish the job before we can explain what happened.”

“No,” Master Skywalker wept, clutching at Jacen’s back. “I won’t leave my students. I can’t leave them.”

In the end, R2-D2 and AC-3 had to help Jacen carry Master Skywalker back to the _Spirit._ As he was set down, Master Skywalker cried out, and the agony radiating from him made Jacen dizzy.

“Master,” he said, “you need to take it easy.”

“No,” Master Skywalker said, “I won’t.”

Jacen grimaced. Mustering his strength, he reached out and calmed his mind, temporarily pushing away his pain. Under normal circumstances, he would never have been able to manipulate his mind, and that he could now was an indication of how weakened Master Skywalker was at the moment.

R2-D2 fetched him a blanket, and AC-3 brought Jacen the ship’s medpac. Jacen treated Master Skywalker as best as he was able, with bacta strips and dermaseal and pain tabs. His meager supplies were hardly enough, though; he needed to be treated at a medcenter. Master Skywalker stared at the ceiling blankly the entire time, and Jacen almost felt bad releasing the hold on his emotions.

“All right?” he murmured.

Master Skywalker’s response was delayed, but he nodded. “Thank you, Jacen. I’m sorry. For everything.”

“Don’t talk like that, Master. None of this is your fault. Now, I’m gonna get us out of here.”

“Hook up my X-wing before we leave,” Master Skywalker requested quietly.

“Sure,” Jacen said. He and AC-3 made their way over to where Master Skywalker kept his prized X-wing and got the towing process started. After years as a flight teacher, Jacen could hook up starfighters with his eyes closed, so he let muscle memory guide the way.

“Where to?” he asked once they were ready to go, looking over his shoulder at Master Skywalker where he was slumped over in his seat. “I could take us to Chandrila or—”

“Hosnian Prime,” Master Skywalker interrupted gruffly. “Leia and Han deserve to know what happened.”

“Got it,” Jacen said, and they were on their way.

Once they were on a hyperspace route, he sat back, running a hand through his bedraggled hair and retying it into its customary knot. He needed to wash his face and eat something, but just the thought of standing up was exhausting.

“You should get some rest, Jacen,” Master Skywalker said, as if reading his mind.

Jacen glanced at him over his shoulder. “I’ll rest once we get there.”

“I insist.”

“Master—” he argued, but Master Skywalker cut him off.

“Jacen, go get some sleep and let this old man have some time to himself. It’s been an exceptionally long day.”

“The _Spirit—_ ”

“I was a pilot long before you came along, kid. I’ll take care of your ship.”

Jacen sighed. Admitting defeat, he yielded his seat and made Master Skywalker promise to wake him up if they ran into any danger.

As he made his way to the small row of pull-down seats at the back of the ship, he wondered where Ben had run off to. Using one hand to strip off his jacket and boots, he called Tai again with the other one.

There was no response.

That wasn’t good. He tried Hennix—nothing. Voe—nothing. Heart racing, he tried Ben.

No answer either.

He needed to go after them. But he needed to take care of his master, too.

He would drop Master Skywalker off on Hosnian Prime and leave him in Senator Organa’s care, then he would leave to find Ben—and hopefully Tai and Voe and Hennix.

Lying down across the row of seats, Jacen thought about all the times Ben had traveled with him on this very ship and how they had taken turns crashing on this makeshift bed, playfully complaining about the shoddy construction of the old X-wing. It had been so natural to share a space with him, just like in their hut at the Praxeum, where Ben kept his side of the bedroom stuffily neat and Jacen littered his belongings all over.

Jacen wanted to believe none of that was in the past. That this was just a major misunderstanding, that he would speak with Ben and Master Skywalker and clear things up, and things would return to the way they had been.

But the Jedi Academy was gone. All but the students who hadn’t been off-world were dead. You couldn’t go back to the past, no matter how much you yearned for it to happen. All you could do was move forward and try to make sense of an insensible world.

When Jacen fell asleep that night, he didn’t dream. It was the last time for years to come. 

  


* * *

  


Jacen woke to frantic beeps, the familiar sound of his anxious astromech panicking. Grumbling, he turned on his side, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

“What is it, Acer?”

AC-3 trilled in binary, pacing back and forth again. Jacen sat up, suddenly wide awake.

“What? What do you mean Master Skywalker is gone?”

He followed AC-3 to the docking arm of the shuttle. It was true: Master Skywalker’s X-wing was gone.

“He tricked me,” he realized, ashamed. “Did he say where he was going?”

AC-3 chirped a negative. He must be either going after Ben or—

Or going into hiding. The moment Jacen thought it, he knew his instinct was correct. Master Skywalker had gone into hiding, and he did not want Jacen to follow him. Chances were Jacen wouldn’t _have_ any way of following him. Master Skywalker was much too good at shielding his emotional signature from being detected via the Force.

Jacen looked at AC-3. “What are we going to do?”

The navicomputer coordinates were still set to Hosnian Prime, so he guessed that Master Skywalker had meant for him to be the one to be the herald of terrible news. He slumped into his pilot’s seat, irritated and hating himself for it.

AC-3 beeped mournfully. “Yeah,” Jacen said. “I guess you’re right—we have to tell Senator Organa and General Han. Then we’ll link up with Tai and the others, and we’ll find Ben.”

If Master Skywalker had run off, then there would be no reconciliation. He would never be able to explain what had really happened, and neither of he nor Ben would ever have the chance to apologize. The rift between them would never heal, and Jacen would lose two of the most important beings in his life. 

He had already lost so many.

“Where would Master Skywalker even go?” he murmured. Not the Core Worlds, not Tatooine, not Lothal or Yavin or Hoth or Endor.

AC-3 chirped: _Odds were, a Jedi temple._

And if Master Skywalker was going to a temple, it was likely the one he was endlessly obsessed with—the first temple. But nobody knew where that one was located.

Jacen had a feeling they never would.

  


* * *

  


The Galactic Senate moved based on each election cycle, and it had relocated to Hosnian Prime for the term. The capital, Republic City, was a crowded metropolis and commercial hub, with dense buildings that stretched up into the sky. After several boring hours in orbit waiting for clearance to enter the atmosphere and then much too long sitting in skylane traffic, Jacen finally landed in the public hangar at the north end of the city, grumpily paying for the ridiculous parking fee.

He paid another sum to take a public airbus to the senatorial complex, squeezed between a Mirialan and a Pau’an chattering away on their holo. AC-3 stuck close to his side, nearly silent; they hadn’t liked crowds since Jacen had first visited a big city after he began learning how to live with his telepathic powers instead of shutting them away as his mother had fearfully taught him to do as a young child.

The Zabrak receptionist Jacen spoke with was skeptical about his identity and his credentials. She looked too young to have known him from the Alliance.

“Isn’t Syndulla a famous general in the army? An old one?”

Jacen rolled his eyes. “That’s my ma,” he explained. “I’m Jacen, the _second_ greatest pilot in the galaxy. Tell Senator Organa that—she’ll know me.”

The receptionist sighed and reached for her holoprojector. “One moment,” she said haughtily in a strong Wild Space accent.

Jacen waited, arms crossed, as she turned her back to him to make the call. AC-3 beeped uneasily, and he assured them with a whisper: “We’ll get to her, Acer. Don’t worry.”

“You sure, sir?” the receptionist was saying. “All right. I’ll send him over. Good day.” She turned back to Jacen, giving him a closer, more interested look. “Never seen a Human with green skin before.”

Jacen grinned, baring his teeth, which were sharpened to fine points as was Rylothian tradition. “My ma’s Twi’lek, remember? Now are you going to help me out or not?”

The other times Jacen had visited Senator Organa, he had been with Master Skywalker, Ben, or his mother, and they had immediately been ushered into her office. This time, he was told to meet her in Memorial Plaza, near the hanging gardens.

The plaza was mostly large stretches of purple grass, surrounded by buildings that housed museums, cultural institutions, and other tourist traps. It was dotted with ponds and massive sandstone statues of war heroes and important leaders. He found Senator Organa standing by one of Bail Organa, datapad in hand. She looked noticeably older than she had the last time he had seen her, but she still held herself like royalty—as if she were taller than all the beings around her.

“Princess!” he called jubilantly before catching himself and bowing, fist in hand.

“Jacen,” Senator Organa said, smiling. “It’s wonderful to see you.”

“You too, sir.”

“None of that,” Senator Organa said, wrapping her arms around him.

Jacen leaned into the embrace, clinging to her. He hadn’t realized how alone he had felt these last few standard days.

“Let me get a good look at you!” she exclaimed, pulling back and holding him by the shoulders. “You’ve grown so much. Hera must be very proud.”

Jacen gave her a wobbly smile. He had thought about contacting his mother while he was airborne, but he figured Senator Organa deserved to be the first to know.

“You’re probably wondering why Ben or Luke aren’t with me,” he said as gently as he could.

Something sad flickered in her eyes. “I am,” she said. “I sensed something in the Force, two standard days ago. Is it terrible? Are they both...”

Jacen thought back to being a little kid in the Rebellion, being assured by everyone on base that his family would return safely from their missions. It had been hard for him to believe back then, and he understood the sense of dread and loss that rolled off her now. He knew she was bracing herself for the worst.

“They’re alive,” he told her, and he could feel her relief through the Force around them. He hated that he had to tell her the rest of the nightmare. “But Princess—something terrible _has_ happened.”

Senator Organa took a deep breath and visibly steeled herself. “Tell me.”

At the unthinkable story, Senator Organa’s face creased in sorrow, her hand rising to cover her mouth. Unlike Master Skywalker and Jacen, she didn’t fall apart, but Jacen could feel a strong tangle of fury, terror, and guilt rising at the core of her.

“And where are they now?” She held up a hand when Jacen opened his mouth to respond. “Actually, don’t tell me yet. There are eyes and ears everywhere here. Come back to my quarters with me. I’ll make you tea, and you can tell me the rest.” She withdrew a comlink from her sleeves. “Cenaro, please push back my meeting with Senator Xiono. I need at least two hours.”

Senator Organa drove them back to her apartment in her landspeeder. The senatorial complex comprised two immense, bustling buildings that reminded Jacen of Alliance bases. But her quarters were filled with half-packed crates.

“What’s going on?” Jacen wondered. “Elections aren’t for another two months, right? You heading out to scope a place early?”

Senator Organa shook her head, leading him to the sitting room and gesturing for him to sit on one of the settees. “I resigned,” she said, making her way to the adjacent kitchen.

“What?” Jacen exclaimed. She had been a senator for almost as long as he could remember. “Why?”

“The Centrists pushed me out. Someone died, and the Senate refused to investigate. They think I’m too controversial, that I’m instigating things on purpose. They have since my parentage was made public.” She sighed. “The Populists wanted me to represent them, but the rest of the Senate is picking us off now. I _could_ fight my way back into the public’s good graces, but I’ve come to believe that I can do more good outside the system. What you’ve told me only makes that clearer.”

She returned with two mugs of Chandrilan tea. He accepted the drink and thanked her as she sat across from him. The delicate, vegetal scent immediately reminded him of his childhood, of days spent playing on the _Ghost,_ of impatient hours with some aide or other while his mother sat in important meetings that would determine the structure of the New Republic.

“I knew my son was different,” Senator Organa— _Princess Organa_ —said. Jacen had known, too, from the moment he had met the quiet infant in Hanna City. “But I didn’t know what to do about it. I sent him away, when I had so much on my plate and so little Jedi training. Seeing how he was thriving under Luke, I used to think I should’ve done it sooner.” Her breath hitched. “But now I see it was actually the opposite: I abandoned him.”

“There was only so much you could do,” Jacen said, looking down at his mug. “It’s not your fault.”

“Luke was so confident,” Princess Organa said. “But maybe it’s in our blood to be tempted by the dark side and lose. Maybe he was going to turn evil no matter what we did or when we did it.”

Jacen thought about Mezai and that conversation in the Tanaduron Jedi temple. “There’s no such thing as evil,” he said. “We’re all capable of great kindness and of great wickedness. Ben has just lost his way.” He thought of the promise he had made. “I’ll help him, sir. I’ll bring him back and save him.”

“Where is he now?”

“He fought some of the surviving students and fled. They were pursuing him, but I lost contact with them. Master Skywalker and I had planned on pursuing them after we came to you, but, well... He snuck off while I was sleeping. I have no idea where he is now.”

“Oh,” Princess Organa said softly, dismayed. Contemplative, she took a long sip of tea, then refilled his cup with the elegant carafe. “So it’s just you and me now then.”

“Yeah, Princess,” Jacen said, grim determination making him sit up straighter. “So what’s our next move?”

  


* * *

  


R2-D2 refused to wake up. He had put himself to sleep and would not wake, no matter what Jacen and AC-3 did. Baffled, Jacen left him with Princess Organa, who promised to take care of him.

“We’ll meet again soon, buddy,” he said to R2-D2 before they left Hosnian Prime. Over dinner delivered from a diner down the street, Princess Organa had told him about her plans after leaving the planet to meet her husband. She had put things in motion to start a new paramilitary group to fight the group of ex-Imperials calling themselves the First Order that was seizing star systems that had seceded from the New Republic. Several Alliance leaders had already promised their support.

“We could use a pilot—and a Jedi—like you,” she had said.

Jacen had agreed readily. There was no school for him to return to, so at least with this resistance group he might be able to do some good.

But first, he had to find Ben. Princess Organa had told him she would take the lead on searching for Master Skywalker. When she had tried reaching out to him in the Force, as Jacen had done many times on the way to Hosnian Prime, she confirmed that it was as if he had silenced himself; his ordinarily bright and loud presence in the Force had completely vanished. Jacen remembered from his history lessons that, after the Purge, some Jedi had cut themselves off from the Force—but it seemed unthinkable that Master Skywalker would do such a thing. He had dedicated his life to understanding the Force and to helping other people understand it. To cut himself now would be to throw away everything he had ever accomplished.

Jacen had told Princess Organa about his guess about the first Jedi temple, and Princess Organa had in turn told him about the many places she had traveled with Ben and those where someone on the run might go to hide.

And now, maneuvering the _Spirit_ back into a hyperspace lane, Jacen and AC-3 were on their way to the first destination on the list: Lah’mu.

  


* * *

  


They visited five different celestial bodies, six celestial objects, three space stations, and nineteen cantinas before Jacen got a lead. On Varnak, a muddy Mid Rim planet, an old Twi’lek who barely spoke any Basic told him about a strange group of black-garbed humanoids who had irritated the regulars for being rude to the service staff. They had been overheard talking about sacrifices and killings, so everyone had assumed they were a particularly brutal troupe of bounty hunters. That was, until someone had overheard one of them—dressed in brown robes that stood out from the others’ clothes—bragging about killing the Jedi Master Luke Skywalker and the rest of his Jedi students.

Jacen bought the old Twi’lek a meal and saluted her, then he was on his way. He tried comming Ben again, but there was still no response. If Ben was bragging about what he had done, then it was little surprise he didn’t want to talk to Jacen. But that only made his quest more urgent.

Talking to the locals who worked in the hangar close to the cantina led him to the Minemoon of Mimban not too far away. When he felt Ben’s distinct emotional signature in the Force, he and AC-3 sped the rest of the way as fast as they could, putting the old _Spirit_ to the test. But he wasn’t Alliance General Hera Syndulla’s kid for nothing.

He knew the intel had been sound when he spotted the _Verity_ parked on the surface. He was pulling his ship in to the muddy moon when he felt it—another terrible tremor in the Force, this one even colder and deeper than the last, reverberating far beyond him. Short on sleep and having been unable to meditate during the journey, Jacen felt the excruciating assault magnified tenfold through his empathetic powers.

_Ben._

He staggered from his seat, holding a hand to his temple. When he took a few tentative steps, he immediately collapsed. AC-3 pushed him up, exasperatedly lecturing him for pushing himself too hard.

“I’ll be okay,” Jacen grunted. His head pounding with an anger and hate that wasn’t his own, he checked to make sure his comlink, blaster, and lightsaber were operational. He hoped he wouldn’t need the weapons, but nothing over the past two days had gone as planned. “You stay here, Acer. Be ready for a quick getaway.”

AC-3 beeped their concern and trepidation, servos whirring. Jacen gave them a confident grin he didn’t feel. “See you soon, buddy.”

Carefully reaching out into the Force to sense Ben’s location, he followed the mental path, trudging through the mud.

He passed another ship, an _Oubliette-_ class transport. There was a complicated set of footsteps in the dirt leading away from it. If they were two-legged beings, Jacen would estimate about eight of them. He hadn’t expected Ben to meet up with people; it wasn’t like he had many friends—as far as Jacen knew. But he was realizing there was much he didn’t know about his friend.

Dread filling him, he glanced behind him to check on the ship. It was still there, thank the stars. He hoped AC-3 was safe.

A little while later, it began to rain, the liquid wicked away by his jacket, boots, and helmet but drenching his trousers, making the light fabric stick to his legs uncomfortably. Still, he continued on.

Not long after, he saw something on the horizon. A large figure—no, several figures. Seven of them—so he had been one off. He laid a hand on his holstered blaster and remained still, squinting through his visor into the distance. As the beings moved closer, the Force around them tightened in response to the resentment rolling off their forms. Jacen had never sensed so much hate and aggression from living beings.

“Ben!” he yelled when they were within earshot. He assumed Ben would recognize him by his helmet—his Loth-wolf insignia painted prominently on its side—even through the rain.

Then again, Ben looked awful and was probably not functioning at full capacity. There were immense bags under his eyes, which were bloodshot, and his hair was even more of a mess than usual. He was panting, and there was a wild look on his face that reminded Jacen of a trapped creature. His lightsaber was drawn, and his other fist was clenched.

One of the beings behind him moved to throw their scythe-like weapon at Jacen, but Ben stopped them with a lift of his hand. In what Jacen had always thought of as his Padawan teaching voice, he said, “I’ll handle this. Return to the ship and prepare for departure.”

As the group left for the transport, Ben stepped closer, his lightsaber still ignited.

“What are you doing here?” he hissed.

Narrowing his eyes, Jacen replied, “Right back at you,” not taking his hand off his blaster. “Why did you run, Ben? It was a misunderstanding. You should have stayed and gotten it cleared up.”

“A misunderstanding?” Ben stalked up to him, his lip curling. “Master Skywalker was going to _kill me._ I saw it in his eyes. So I killed him before he could.” Their heights were nearly the same now, so, when he leaned in, they were eye to eye. “You should be glad; I’ve freed you of a terrible influence. Now you can go be a proper pilot like you’d always dreamed, and leave it all behind.”

“I’ve never wanted that,” Jacen said, bewildered. “My place is with the New Jedi Order.” His chest was tight. “Or, it was. You know that.”

“Do I?” Ben sneered, crouching and brandishing his lightsaber in one of the very first martial forms Master Skywalker had taught them. “You know what I think? I think you stayed out of pity for the old man. Or was it pity for me?”

“What are you talking about?" Jacen said. "I love being a Jedi. I loved Master Skywalker, and I love you, too. You’re my best friend, Ben. You know me. I don’t want to fight you.” He put his hands up, beseeching, leaving his blaster where it was and hoping his gamble wouldn’t be for nothing. “Talk to me.”

But Ben ignored him, dashing forward to strike him overhead. By pure instinct, Jacen shifted into a defensive position and drew out his own lightsaber to parry his attack, the blades buzzing as they clashed. 

“You might as well surrender now,” Ben growled, and Jacen whirled around sharply to avoid a blow. “You know you can’t win against me.”

“Maybe not,” Jacen said, darting at Ben and feinting a slash toward his side before using the momentum to go for his thigh, which Ben leaped to avoid just in time. “But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to try.”

“You’re wasting your time. I killed the other Jedi—all of them. One strike of Force lightning, and they were all dead. That’s all it took.”

“Force lightning?” Jacen repeated, taking a moment to remove his helmet, which was obscuring his peripheral vision. That was a trademark of the dark side. “Since when have you been able to use Force lightning?”

“Does it matter?” Ben growled, using his bulk to corner Jacen. His combat style had always been aggressive, but it was even more belligerent now. “It’s at my disposal now.”

“Of course it matters,” Jacen said, frowning. He ducked beneath Ben’s lightsaber and slid through the mud to protect his back. “Did you really mean to kill Master Skywalker? Did you mean to kill any of them? Or did you just lose control?”

He knew he was right when Ben flinched, leaving himself vulnerable to the slash of Jacen’s lightsaber at his right arm. “Come with me. Explain what happened to your mother. She’ll understand.”

“I don’t want her understanding!” Ben snarled, using the Force to fling him to the ground. “All this time, I’ve had so much power, and all Leia Organa and Luke Skywalker did was try to suppress it. Those cowards are unworthy of my time.”

“They were only trying to protect you!”

“Protect me!” Ben laughed, a short cutting sound. Grunting, Jacen rolled and slashed at Ben’s leg with his lightsaber, causing him to fall as well. “I don’t need their protection. And I don’t need yours either. I would have killed you, too, you know, if you’d been there. I wouldn’t falter.”

He sounded like he was trying to convince himself. “You don’t sound so sure,” Jacen taunted, trying to distract him again as he got back on his feet and circled Ben, rolling his shoulders.

“I’m sure,” Ben growled, scrambling up as well. “I’m going to do it. I’m going to prove I’m worthy.”

“To who? Those new friends of yours?”

“I killed their master. They’re my men now.”

“You killed— _Ben,”_ Jacen shouted as he blocked low. “When will the killing stop? Or is this just who you are now?”

“I am fulfilling my destiny. _Mine._ Not Skywalker’s, or Organa’s, or Solo’s. You wouldn’t understand—you’re all too happy to be exactly like your parents, like a mindless droid who doesn't know better. But I’m walking my own path. And with Snoke behind me, I can’t fail.”

“Snoke,” Jacen repeated, racking his brain and cursing his poor memory. “Your friend, Snoke—the one you used to write to? The one you used to tell me about? What does he have to do with this?”

“I lied,” Ben said, dodging a blow and grabbing Jacen’s wrist. Jacen twisted out of his grasp, tossing his lightsaber in the air before catching it with his other hand behind Ben, a showy maneuver they had practiced together. “I don’t write to him. Snoke speaks to me, in my mind. He has since I was a child, when he selected me to be his apprentice.”

Jacen gaped at him. “Have you met him?” he demanded, backing up and pulling out his blaster. If Ben was breaking dueling rules, then he’d be a fool not to. Still, he set it to stun. “How do you know he’s trustworthy?”

“I know!” Ben growled, blocking his precise shots. “He’s been on my side, when none of you have!”

“I’ve always been on your side!” Jacen protested, trying to deflect Ben’s returned shots back at him.

“No, you haven’t!” Ben shouted, dashing forward to strike him with a triple slash. His anguish was like a mental assault, so intense that Jacen swayed, leaving his defensive position open.

Ben's final swing struck Jacen in the left side of his face, unforgiving. He screamed as the hot plasma blade burned through his eye, stumbling backward in pain.

“Jace!” Ben said, alarmed, and it was like he had woken up. “I didn’t mean to—”

Growling, Jacen lunged at him, summoning his full power, charged by the pain-laced adrenaline coursing through him. He attacked him fiercely, anger and despair and bone-deep pain fueling him as he thought about all the beings Ben had killed for this voice in his head.

Taking advantage of Ben’s hesitation, Jacen's lightsaber burned through Ben’s shirt, leaving the fabric in tatters and glowering stripes of burns across his chest. Thinking of all his dead students and companions, of Master Skywalker’s broken face and Princess Organa's solemn pain, Jacen struck Ben over and over, unforgiving, until he stood over him, his blade at his throat.

“Yield,” he growled.

“Jace, you—”

“ _Yield!_ ”

Ben dropped his lightsaber, holding his hands up in surrender. “Come with me, Jace,” he pleaded, his previously narrowed eyes suddenly huge and imploring. “Join me. We’ve always been a good team. With the dark side, we’ll be invincible.”

“Is that you or the voice in your head talking?”

“We can rule together,” Ben said, ignoring him. “That’s when we’re at our best.” He reached out a hand, palm up, and there was something desperate in his eyes. “Everything we talked about, everything that we agreed was wrong with the galaxy—we’ll fix it. Ours will be a new order.”

“Ben...”

“Join me,” Ben said, voice cracking. “Please.”

Jacen stared at him, keeping his lightsaber in place. He took in the sheen of sweat and rain on his face, the imploring crease of his expression, the shaking of his hand. The sense of loneliness radiating from him, dark and foreboding in the Force.

Then he looked at the path from which Ben had come, and back at where he had seen the _Verity_ parked _._

“I can’t do that,” Jacen said, sorrow making his limbs heavy. His wounded eye was throbbing, the rain washing the blood down his face. “You killed Tai, too, didn’t you? And Voe and Hennix? All these people that meant something to you. _Because_ they meant something to you. Right?”

Even through the rain, he could see the way Ben’s expression crumpled with guilt. Jacen shook his head and added, “Even if I wanted to go with you, Snoke would never let me live.”

“I would keep you safe,” Ben said. “You’re not like the others. You’ve never been.”

“I don’t think so,” Jacen said, bowing his head and switching off his lightsaber. “Just like everyone else, I’ve failed to protect what we built.”

At his surrender, Ben lunged for his own lightsaber and stood up, brandishing it at Jacen, who remained still.

“Do it,” he said, closing the eye that still worked. “Complete the job for your new master. What’s another life when you’ve already taken so many?”

Ben’s lightsaber hand was unsteady, drawing jagged lines in the rain. The misery he emanated was tangled with rage and shame; weakened by his stinging wounds, Jacen struggled to shield himself from the mental bombardment.

Then, Ben was falling back, his lightsaber extinguished.

“I can’t do it!” he cried, holding his head. But he wasn’t talking to Jacen anymore. “Not him; don’t make me kill him. I can’t do it! I won’t!”

Jacen looked up. “Fight him, Ben,” he said cautiously. “You can do this.”

“Master!” Ben cried. “Please! Anything but this. Anyone but him!”

After watching Ben flounder for another moment, Jacen knew what he had to do.

_Not at either poles but in the middle._

Gathering his strength, he reached out to Ben with both his hands and his telepathy, forcing open a channel in his mind in a way that he had been forbidden from ever doing before. Master Skywalker had warned them that such an intrusion could break a victim, but Jacen had to try. He would shoulder the consequences.

Concentrating amid the tumult in both their minds, he probed Ben’s, searching for this alleged connection with Snoke, who must have insinuated his way here in a similar fashion.

When he found the link—strange connection point that emitted a putrid, hoary sense of decay—he used his powers to silence their bond.

“Jace,” Ben gasped the moment Snoke was suppressed. His eyes were huge and terrified. “You have to get out of here!”

“I won’t leave you,” Jacen insisted, even as he trembled from the effort of holding Snoke off. “I’m here for you. We’ll fight him together.”

“No!” Ben shrieked, terror flashing in his eyes. “Don’t let him hurt you. Don’t let _me_ hurt you! _”_

Jacen shook his head, winded from funneling his power into the mental battle. He ignored the persistent pain of the wounds on his physical body in favor of focusing on his Force powers. “Together,” he panted, repeating Ben's words: “That’s when we’re at our best.”

Through the strain, he barely noticed what Ben was saying, or that tears were falling down his face, mingling with the rainwater. “You’re my dearest friend,” he wept. “I need you to be safe.”

When Jacen didn’t move, still concentrating on fighting Snoke, Ben tried to tug his lightsaber out of his hands.

“You have to go!” he shouted. He looked like a caged wild creature, his hair whipping around his face. “Go, and don’t ever let me see you again. Don’t go to my parents. Don’t go to your mother. Don’t go to the rest of your family. Never use your Force powers again—or he’ll find you. He knows too much, and he won’t stop looking for you. Promise me you’ll hide. Promise me you’ll be safe!”

“No, I can still help you!” Desperation cracked Jacen’s voice as he wrestled for his lightsaber, losing his mental hold on Ben’s mind as his focus splintered.

“Promise me!”

“Ben,” Jacen said, helpless and dizzy, as he was forced out of the mental fray. While he was distracted trying to carefully navigate back to Snoke’s point of connection, Ben wrenched the lightsaber from him and threw it over his shoulders in a high arc through the clouds. “Hey!”

“ _Jacen!_ ”

At the sight of Ben’s adamant, terrified face, he buckled. “All right. I promise.”

“Good,” Ben said, and then he was clutching his head again. “ _Go!_ ”

With a shout, he used the Force to push Jacen away, up into the air and toward the _Spirit_ , breaking their connection abruptly.

Shouting, Jacen crashed far enough away that Ben was nothing more than a smudge in the distance. The fall battered his body, sending it into excruciating pain.

“Ben!” he bellowed, staggering up before falling with a shriek. His left eye was in agony, the wound from Ben’s lightsaber strike still burning like it was on fire. Hot blood streamed over his fingers when he touched his face gingerly. He also felt a distinct kind of agony with each breath that must have been due to cracked ribs. In contrast, he couldn’t feel his leg. The knot of dread in his chest tightened. “ _Ben!_ ”

But Ben didn’t respond. He stood there for a long moment, head bowed, and then he turned and walked away.

Jacen lay there in the mud for a long time, slipping in and out of consciousness and feeling the part of his heart that had survived the massacre shattering into a thousand pieces. The storm clouds dissipating overhead seemed to mock him.

Eventually, he weakly raised himself on his elbows and withdrew his comlink from his jacket pocket. 

After he called AC-3, he passed out again.

The next time he blinked awake, his droid was dragging him onto the _Spirit,_ warbling in distress. Jacen closed his eyes and swallowed his humiliation.

“Ben’s gone,” he confessed as AC-3 gently pushed him so that he was sitting against the wall of the ship’s interior. “I failed him.”

AC-3 beeped sorrowfully, extending a servo to pat him on the shoulder. He leaned against their helm, pressing his forehead to the comforting warmth, and shuddered.

At least he wasn’t alone.

  


* * *

  


Jacen wanted to go after Ben. He wanted to follow him and plead with him to return to the _Spirit_ with him, to put aside all this dark side nonsense and help make things right.

But he was frightened. Ben had warned him about going to his family. The thought that the best friend he had introduced to his loved ones so proudly would hurt the only beings he had left was horrifying.

Ben knew too much.

_Snoke_ knew too much.

And now the latter would have Jacen’s emotional signature. From that, he would be able to find him using the Force, wherever in the galaxy he tried to hide.

Jacen couldn’t go back to Hosnian Prime. He couldn’t go to the _Ghost_ or Chandrila or Ryloth. He couldn’t go to Lira San or Ganthel or Krownest or the _Colossus,_ or anywhere else he had friends. There was only one place that his barely functioning brain could think of.

Once he was far from the Minemoon and he and AC-3 had done their best to treat him with the remaining medical supplies, Jacen withdrew the holocron he had never had a chance to give Master Skywalker from his bag. Using the Force, he opened it as he had been taught, its brilliant blue faces twisting into a cuboctahedron.

Inside one of the detachable prismatic compartments was the information he was looking for, something Luke had never taught them: 

How to cut oneself off from the Force.

  


* * *

  


Before Jacen left civilization behind entirely, he sent a message to Lira San on a secure frequency, carefully encoded and encrypted the way his uncle had taught him.

_Uncle Sandy_ , he wrote, knowing he was the only person in the world who used that nickname.

_I don’t have much time. Please let the rest of my family know that I won’t be seeing any of you for a while. My old friend has betrayed me, and I must go into hiding, like in the old days. Do not come looking for me, or danger will follow._

_My heart will forever be with you all. I hope we will meet again, one day. May the Force be with you, always._

  


* * *

  


Stubborn as always, AC-3 refused to be dropped off with Princess Organa. They insisted on staying with him, even if that meant being turned offline to eliminate a signal for Snoke to follow. After a long, exhausting argument, Jacen finally acquiesced.

Leaving his droid in the _Spirit_ and his ship in the mossy permafrost, disguised as a fatal crash, was one of the hardest things he’d ever had to do.

Pushing the crates of supplies he had surreptitiously gathered on repulsorlifts, Jacen made his way to the entrance of the Jedi temple. The first time he had been here, he had initially assumed the door had to be opened with the Force; eventually he had realized that the temple had been intended to be a sanctuary, and that the native inhabitants had built a series of mechanical wards on the pristine surface of the building so that non-Jedi would be able to use it as a sanctum if they knew the key.

Now that Jacen knew what he was doing, the process of entering the temple was simple enough to replicate. Once he and his cargo were inside, he breathed a sigh of relief.

Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a wave of shimmering gold that coalesced into a convor.

“Hey, Mezai,” he said, holding a glowrod in place of his lightsaber this time. “Did you miss me?”

  


* * *

  


  


  


  


  


Many years later, Jacen emerged from hiding, as he did annually, to replenish his supplies. In the marketplace of a remote city on the planet’s prime moon, he heard the news over the HoloNet.

Alliance General Han Solo was dead.

Jedi Master Luke Skywalker was dead.

Resistance General Leia Organa was dead.

Jedi Killer Kylo Ren, once known as Ben Solo, was dead—and so was the Sith Lord who had been his master.

Jacen wept right there in the city square, uncaring of what the locals would think of the cloaked near-Human with the crude eyepatch, unkempt beard, and makeshift cane.

All these people who had watched him grow up, who had helped shape him into the person he was today, were gone.

All but his _Ghost_ family.

In the end, they were the only ones he had been able to save.

When he got back to his ship, he punched in the coordinates for Hanna City, Chandrila. He woke up AC-3, who squealed in delight at the reunion. Teary-eyed, he embraced them, leaning his head against their housing, just as he had done on that terrible day years ago.

As they made their way out of the system, AC-3 helped him connect to a frequency he hadn’t used in years. Jacen’s now feeble hands shook as he wiped his face with a rag and reknotted his ponytail, which was now long enough to reach the middle of his back, like his own special version of lekku.

He hailed the _Ghost_ and pushed the holoprojector’s recording button.

“Ma? It’s me. I’m coming home.”

  


* * *

  


> _“With the blood of a scoundrel and princess in his veins, his defiance will shake the stars.”_  
>  —Lando Calrissian, on Ben Solo

  


* * *

  


**CODA:**

The night he pushed Jacen away for the final time, Kylo Ren bled his lightsaber and surrendered to the dark side. Later, when he first made the connection with Rey, his barely there control slipped, and he couldn’t help but think of the last person who had invaded his mind. His thoughts revolved around a precious memory from nearly a decade ago: In it, Jacen sits beside him on the floor of their shared hut, folded over laughing at a dumb joke Ben has told, alternately slapping Ben’s thigh and elbowing him in the side. Grinning widely, Ben leans into him, giggling, and calls him a nerf-herder.

“Who is that?” Rey asked, innocently curious.

“Someone I lost,” Kylo Ren snapped, and slammed the connection shut.

  


  


  


**Author's Note:**

> TFW you don’t start out shipping two characters but then you’re in the middle of writing a 10k fic about their backstory and you realize they're your new favorite rarepair.
> 
> Can you believe Ben Solo is canonically a calligraphy nerd??
> 
> Also, woof, adventures in writing for a fandom with such a huge, sprawling canon... I outlined Jacen as an empath and then found out Charles Soule had already given Ben a former empath friend!!! >:( Great minds, etc.
> 
> Also also, not me cackling every time I wrote the words "Uncle Sandy."
> 
> Come cry with me about Star Wars on [Twitter](http://twitter.com/morethansky) or [Tumblr](http://morethansky.tumblr.com)!


End file.
